The Artisanal Cheese Alchemy

At Sugar House Creamery, a tiny dairy farm tucked in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, it’s all about the Brown Swiss cows. They’re hardy. They’re docile. They turn the farm’s tough grass into well-balanced milk perfectly suited for cheese-making. “And they’re not too hard on the eyeballs,” says Alex Eaton, who, with Margot Brooks, founded Sugar House in December 2013.

The farm produces just three types of cheese, which Alex says ensures consistency and extremely high quality. But the small size of their operation also allows for experimentation, which Margot can trace back to her childhood on a dairy farm, making batches of chèvre on the kitchen stovetop from the milk of her pet goats.
Alex and Margot’s photos and videos capture the essence of life in the New York countryside — except for the smells. “The grassy, vegetal smell of warm summer milk being strained into the bulk tank. The smell of the cheese cave: beer and pine boards and yeast and earth. So many smells,” says Alex. “Some bad, but mostly good.”